Gillard misses mark in Boao speech

Julia Gillard
missed an important opportunity to promote Australia’s economic record and got her tone wrong in her speech to the Boao forum. This certainly made the Prime Minister’s speech stand out – but not in a good way.

Her decision to focus on the importance of climate change may play well to a certain domestic audience and resonates with increasing concern about Chinese pollution levels. But it jarred with the forum’s focus on the importance of China’s growth and development. It was telling that President
Xi Jinping
didn’t even mention climate change or carbon pricing in his opening address.

Instead, he talked in a positive way about the profound adjustments necessary to China’s development model as it continued its attempt to raise the standard of living of all its people and to co-operate with other countries in a global village.

Gillard also underwhelmed some senior members of the Australian business community at the forum. She largely ignored celebrating the strength of Australia’s massive trade relationship with China and the mutual benefits it brings to both countries.

She certainly didn’t mention the iron ore or coal (ahem) exports that are contributing to both growth and pollution. Nor did she express any sense of vision for the future relationship.

This was in contrast to New Zealand Prime Minister
John Key
, who talked about the beneficial links and detailed the exports and relationships New Zealand could develop with China.

It fits the mixed messages being given by the Prime Minister on this visit, including the repeated public references to the sensitive issue of human rights and the timing of a new paper advising Australians about the risks of doing business in China.

It’s as if Gillard is too busy concentrating on domestic politics to take real advantage of the broader international platform. China’s influential Eximbank chairman, Li Ruogo, had earlier joked to a private business forum dismissively that if China was clever enough to deal with climate change, it would be more helpful to try to fix earthquakes first.